CVE•Published 2026-03-20•Modified 2026-06-30•1 article on news•6 live references•NVD data

CVE-2026-33236Nltk · Nltk

Vulnerability data via NVD (ingested)

CVSS v3.1

8.1

HIGH

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H

EPSS percentile

—

Weaknesses (CWE)

CWE-22Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')

Description

NLTK (Natural Language Toolkit) is a suite of open source Python modules, data sets, and tutorials supporting research and development in Natural Language Processing. In versions 3.9.3 and prior, the NLTK downloader does not validate the `subdir` and `id` attributes when processing remote XML index files. Attackers can control a remote XML index server to provide malicious values containing path traversal sequences (such as `../`), which can lead to arbitrary directory creation, arbitrary file creation, and arbitrary file overwrite. Commit 89fe2ec2c6bae6e2e7a46dad65cc34231976ed8a patches the issue.

Timeline

Published 2026-03-20

Modified 2026-06-30

External references

NVD MITRE Exploit-DB GitHub PoC Sploitus VulnCheck

Search for exposed instances

Shodan + Censys queries derived from NVD's CPE data. The vuln tag catches assets Shodan has explicitly linked to this CVE; the product / banner fingerprints find exposed instances even when the vuln tag was never applied (which is common).

Shodan · vuln tag0 hosts

vuln:CVE-2026-33236

Hosts Shodan has explicitly fingerprinted as vulnerable.

Shodan · product

product:"Nltk Nltk"

All exposed Nltk Nltk instances — cross-reference with the CVE's affected-version range.

Shodan · banner/body mention

http.html:"Nltk"

HTTP body or banner mentions "Nltk" — catches deploys Shodan didn't identify as a product.

More intel sources (5)

Shodan report

vuln:CVE-2026-33236